Despite the openings that the Pirates have in their bullpen, general manager Neal Huntington said that the determination that Sharpless would not be in position to compete for one of those spots came long before Thursday's demotion, however. The decision was easy, Huntington said, because Sharpless simply didn't come into camp in the necessary physical condition to compete.

"To come out and compete with the numbers that we have, he didn't put himself in the best position to be able to do that," Huntington said. "If we were in a normal situation with not 30 pitchers in camp, he probably would have been fine. But we've got too large a number of pitchers that everyone needed to be ready to go right out of the chute. He didn't put himself in that situation."